Autistic Children Blog

I’ve just gotten home after picking the kids up from their last day of school. Beth is of course going to high school next year, Bill will be in grade four and Bridie will be in grade two. Gee time flies!

We had the Christmas Carols last night at school. We have a wonderful music teacher this year who has created a massive choir. With a fairly small country style school of just under 150 kids we have about 50 in the choir! Some parents and I were so jealous of how good they sounded, we asked if we could have a parent’s choir too. We had our debut performance at the carols last night. When we were announced and I got out of my seat to go up my boy Bill was mortified. He had a smile on his face to start with then it disappeared and he mouthed “you!” Even on the way home he told me that he couldn’t believe how much I had embarassed him. Sadly he believed me when I told him that is why I did it. I finally told him that that wasn’t true but that it was a bonus! I was petrified as were most of us I think but we managed to sing our way through our ‘community’ song – Lean on Me, followed by the Christmas song Feliz Navidad. We did get lovely comments afterwards, don’t know if people were being polite or not but a few other parents said they would like to join.

I was so happy with Beth at the carols. She hadn’t practiced with her class at all and had in fact refused to go to music all year, saying that she had an issue with the music teachers voice. I do believe that anxiety heightens senses and as Beth’s main oversensitivities seem to be to do with noise, she wasn’t coping with louder situations more than usual. Yesterday before we left she told me that she didn’t want to go to the carols, then that she didn’t want to sing. I told her that it didn’t matter, she could just come and enjoy them. Well she ended up getting up with her class, holding hands with one of her lovely friends. She didn’t sing but she had a huge smile on her face. Later on when the raffle was being drawn she even put her hand up to go and pull out a raffle ticket. I was so chuffed, it was like the old Beth was back.

The other lovely development was that she was chatting to her teacher. As Beth had a fear of the classroom this year she didn’t get to bond with her teacher like she has with other teachers in previous years. We weren’t sure if it was because he was her first male teacher or if it was the classroom. A new ad is on at the moment with a man with a beard and shaggy hair like her teacher. Every time it comes on Beth waves and says “Hello Mr So and So.” (I wont use his name on here.) Apparently she was telling him this at the graduation dinner. He laughed last night and said he’ll call the ad company and complain that they didn’t show the ad earlier in the year. At least then he would have known that Beth liked him!

For the last assembly today I took a box of tissues just in case but it wasn’t a sad one at all thank goodness. Unlike all the other girls trotting around to say goodbye and having a few tears, Beth got into the car and played on her DSI, eating lollies. I was pleased actually, rather than build up a big deal in her mind it’s nice that she’s ended on a positive note. She’s happy that it’s holidays and summer and especially Christmas. I’m going to add a few more photos on here that I’ve been sent of graduation, also a couple of films of Beth’s speech and award at graduation. Please forgive the crappy quality, my darling husband isn’t known for his camera skills! Still, you’ll get the picture. Even though the microphone disappears into Beth’s mouth at the end you’ll still hear her lovely speech.